Tasmania’s magnificent blackwoods

The forest industry TV series “Going Bush” offers a traditional view of the “public service/public forest” forest industry. It’s a view dominated by science and professionalism. In my view that is a very 19th century attitude to forestry that just doesn’t work in the 21st century.

As their website says:

The television show about our forests, the people who work in them and the industries they support. Going Bush is designed to be entertaining, informative and most of all give the proud and passionate people that work in our forest industries a voice, a chance to tell their stories.

This particular video on blackwood is an excerpt from Series 4 Episode 2 and comes from a few years ago.

The video showcases some of the issues around public native blackwood forest management and the blackwood industry. There is no doubt that Forestry Tasmania has contributed significantly to our understanding of native blackwood forest management, in the same way that New Zealand farmers and foresters have dominated research into successful commercial blackwood plantation management.

The video is a bit of forest industry propaganda that highlights the “good bits”. There is a “business-as-usual, everything is going really well, don’t you worry” persona about the video that hides the very real turmoil within the industry. Blackwood issues such as the overcutting and mismanagement of the public resource, taxpayer subsidies, the incessant politics and community conflict are conveniently ignored.

And as for the remark by the hosts near the end of the video that there will be “blackwood sawlogs for decades to come” that is a long way from the truth.